


Jade: I'll Give You a Hand

by BlameMyMuses



Series: Apotheosis [5]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 07:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7351843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameMyMuses/pseuds/BlameMyMuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade is an automail mechanic's apprentice. Dirk is an automail mechanic. They wind up with a client neither of them ever expected to see again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jade: I'll Give You a Hand

He hides his hair with dye, and his eyes with shades, but you know his secret. They call him “Strider” here in Rush Valley, because he makes the best damn automail legs of any mechanic around. You’re so lucky to be learning from him…even if he is a huge grump!

 

He refuses to use your actual name. Says it doesn’t suit you. Well, he isn’t entirely wrong, you’ve never felt much like the name that appears on all your school records. You’d picked a better one when you were three, and demanded everyone call you that instead, even though the meanings weren’t all that different. Still. He won’t even call you Jade. It’s just a lot of “pass me that spanner” and “where’d the box of machine screws go?”

 

It’s like…if he says your name…he has to acknowledge that he  _ knows  _ you.

 

You certainly know him, though just where it is you met has always been a mystery.

 

You’re not really allowed to do much more than pass him tools, yet, anyway, which means a lot of time you wind up sitting next to the fireplace with Bec, watching. He gives you homework while you sit there, even though he isn’t old enough to be a teacher.

 

“ Skill is more important than age,” he’s said more than once, and you are inclined to agree—especially when older mechanics who have never met Strider before come looking for a fight. You’re no slouch, but you will never achieve the same level of grace that, on him, seems as easy as walking. He always sends those assholes packing, and they always come back the next day, or a few days later, or whenever it is that they stop nursing their ouches and realize that he’d gone easy on them.

 

When they come back, he’s always courteous and distant, and will answer whatever questions they ask of him, about his automail skills, his teacher, his preferred wrench set, whatever inane questions they can dig up to judge his skill on.

 

You love to watch him talk them down into awed quiet.

 

Strider never waxes poetic, never gets starry-eyed over the machines he crafts, but his knowledge is inexhaustible. Some mechanics are only good at the building side, some at the wiring, some at the connection ports. Your teacher, a scant three years older than you, he’s good at it all.

 

He’s only sixteen, but already “experts” in the field are beginning to defer to him on matters of balance and alloys.

 

***

 

When you’re fourteen, even though he never gave you permission, you start drafting an arm. You use your own arm as a model, but work in the mirror image, just for practice. You don’t know if you’re allowed to be using his tools, so you only work with the handful you’ve bought for yourself, which makes the first draft rough, ungainly, too heavy.

 

You shove it in an old broken refrigerator, and try not to think about how badly you fucked it up. You go back to watching what he’s doing, running numbers and simulations, practicing techniques when he lets you. He’s a bit of a control freak, you know, so it isn’t as often as you’d like, but it’s something he’s working on. Slowly, he eases up, gets used to you, let’s you do more.

 

***

 

A few months late you try again, and the results are…better. Not great, but you got yourself a new blowtorch, which made things way easier, and you’d used a finer grade soldering wire, too, so the joins went together much more neatly.

 

It still wasn’t good enough to show Strider, so you put it with the other one, and keep studying.

 

You make roughly an arm a month this way, and can’t bring yourself to show him a single one.

 

***

 

A few months into this, Strider opens the broken fridge to start work on repairing it.

 

A literal armload falls out into his face.

 

He is not amused, but you can’t stop laughing. Somehow, it just seems like maybe it was karma.

 

***

 

You know Strider’s people have a thing against creating, mostly where alchemists are concerned, but some people are just meant to make things. You’re one. Strider’s another.

 

Sometimes you wonder if that’s why he left.

 

He doesn’t talk about being Ishvalan—well, why would he, the way the government treated his people? Sometimes little bits fall through the cracks, though. His guardian (you get the feeling he didn’t have parents) was very political, spoke publicly and satirically about important issues, and wrote pamphlets, drew political comics. He had a very successful radio show, too, apparently, though he kept his political persona separate (or at least buried under layers of ironic commentary). Strider doesn’t say it, but you did the math, and figured out that your mentor has been on his own since around the time of the Ishval Massacre. It’s no far stretch to conclude that his guardian was probably killed for his political views.

 

Once he mentioned a younger brother. When you asked, he looked confused, and asked “what brother?” like he’d never said it. You don’t ask again, because he’d looked so scared, so pained.

 

You understand memory issues, after all. You’ve had them all your life. Sometimes you remember people who shouldn’t exist, too.

 

***

 

Sometimes those people remember you too.

 

You’re fifteen when he finds you, though the finding is an accident. He came to be fitted for new automail arms, his original pair just clunky stand-ins.

 

At first, you don’t see his face, just the mess of hair, dark and straight, and getting a tad long in back. His dad is standing nearby, puffing away on a pipe, his hat low over his face, and you can tell he’s concerned. You’ve seen enough family members fearful of the pain on their loved ones’ behalf, to recognize this stance. They hear you enter, even though you’re quiet, and the boy turns to look.

 

He’s your around your age, and his eyes are bright and humorous, and when they meet yours you see the same spark of recognition kindle in them, a perfect match to the little heat of joy that lit in your chest.

 

“ Jade!” he says, and it is as much an exaltation as it is a question, like he knows the answer, but can’t help but disbelieve.

 

“ John!” you say back, and you’re beaming, your too-big teeth mirroring his. You don’t look anything alike, you so dark and strong, hair so wild, him so slight and pale, but in another life you might have been cousins. Or siblings. Well, related, anyway.

 

His dad looks back and forth between you two, and Strider does too, but if either of them thought to say something, neither acts on the urge.

 

“ You look so different!” he says, and you’re both laughing, you’re both crying.

 

“ So do you,” you say. “Where are your glasses?”

 

“ Don’t need them anymore.”

 

He leans against you. His arms are metal, strong, hammer-wielding. You can smell the alloys, though, the composition of the metal, and know he could have better. You could  _ make  _ better.

 

You turn to Strider, heart thudding.

 

He’s watching you, shades firmly in place, but you’ve become an expert at reading his expressions, subtle as they are.

 

“ Alright, Jade,” he says. He’s never used your name before. “Alright. It’s all on you. Make the kid a pair of arms.”

 

Your smile is fangs and promise.

 

“ We’re doing this, John,” you say.

 

He grins back. “We’re making this happen.”


End file.
